Category: Equality

Equality stories

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Register Now – Joint National Conference for UCU members – 13th October 2018

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Marketisation is destroying education in our colleges, universities, prisons and the adult education sector. UCU is at a crossroads – how do we get the type of union we need to push back the Tories and the employers in the struggle against marketisation? How can we build and strengthen our union for the fight over pay, pensions and for a progressive post-16 education system?
In the late summer and early autumn, both Further and Higher Education members will ballot over pay. And the USS dispute may restart in earnest if the Joint Expert Panel (JEP) finds the projections of the deficit credible.
Our union has been transformed by strikes. Over 20,000 new members have joined. Branches have grown – in some cases by 50% or more.
All those who care about the future of UCU need to unite and emphasise our needs – for a democratic, fighting union that stands up for its members.
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This conference, called by many groups uniting together, is an opportunity for UCU members from across the UK to meet and debate the big questions facing us. Please join us.
Registration from 10.30. Conference starts at 11.00.
Register here
Sessions on :
USS * Precarious workers * Resisting Redundancies * Democracy in the union * Reclaim the curriculum *  Immigration / EU nationals * The money’s there, we want our share – radical accounting * How to Organise Strikes * We Are the University *
Adult Ed/Devolution/Apprenticeships * Victimisation* Activist Pamphlet launch
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Another Education is Possible, Spring 2018: The casualised – at the heart of the union

The Casualised – at the heart of the Union.

Christina Paine

UCU is in transformation through grassroots organisation for the USS and FE strikes. We saw an unprecedented mobilisation of precariously employed workers on those snow-bound picket lines, leading teach-outs and debates about democracy and representation through tweets and Facebook posts. Most of these hourly paid lecturers, researchers or GTA’s have little pension to depend on or fight for. They risk losing teaching next year simply for taking strike action or holding union office.

Yet, in 2018 these workers, following several years of sustained activism and publicity by activists in UCU, were fighting for something bigger. The USS dispute – where the younger workers clearly have the most to lose – has mobilised a new generation buoyed up by collective fights against the rampant marketization of the sector, the TEF and REF and the contempt shown for academic and related staff through the systemic devaluing of pensions and job security.

Why have the voices of the casualised become louder on UCU committees and picket lines? Have casualised staff only just gained consciousness of their exploitation? Do they only feel now they can have a voice that can be meaningfully exercised? Has UCU only recently started to recognise the mechanisms which enforce the two-tier system in our institutions, significantly propped up by the oppression of the young and female and black workers on low pay and precarious conditions? All these reasons are somewhat accurate. But what has changed is that the UCU membership has realised anew that our strength is always in our capacity for collective action. An important tide has turned in UCU. Now, more than ever, casualised workers say they want to see a collective fight over their working conditions by all UCU members; a fight for decent secure jobs and pensions for all.

The problem

54% of HE academic staff and 30% of FE staff are employed on insecure contracts. Fixed-term contracts are the predominant form of employment for early to mid-career staff in higher education. The increase in precarious work drives down pay and conditions for all staff. No wonder UCEA, the national negotiating body for employers in HE, refuses to commit to action on the precariat. Remedying the conditions of these workers would require fundamental overhaul of the system, one maintained on inequality and exploitation, poverty and worsening mental health. But, worse than poor working conditions is the reality of broken careers and lives. Many highly qualified lecturers struggle to stay in their chosen profession while others leave and seek alternative careers. Being casualised can make you feel undeserving and worthless. After all we ask – why can’t I get that career break that everyone else gets?

Providing casualised work is a political choice and cannot be divorced from other detriments to workers under capitalism. Invisible labour, such as marking, preparation, meetings and pastoral work exacerbates exploitation. Central too is the heavy concentration of women and black workers in the lower quartiles of pay and on casualised contracts. This exacerbates the gender pay gap and affects choices about whether to have children. It also fuels the silence over the high incidence of sexual harassment in our institutions as casualised women fear losing work for speaking out.

UCU in Transformation

UCU cannot go back to what it was. With 24,000 new members, many of them young PhD students, new questions are being asked about our democratic processes, representation of members and the accountability of the NEC.

Following the USS strike action, what can we do to support newer casualised members to take a full role in the union? Clearly, we need all members to work together to step up the fight. The voices of the casualised must be heard and acted upon.

It is about equality and fairness. Casualised reps are calling for a more progressive subs system where those who earn more pay more, thus decreasing the burden on lower paid members. Lack of facility time is a massive issue. It impedes self-determined representation of casualised staff.  We call for decent facility time for all reps.

Language matters. Casualised workers need to be central to the struggle to reframe our colleges and universities. Language should include us:  Indeed even the term ‘casualisation’ does not really describe the multiple kinds of workers propping up our colleges and universities rather ‘precarious workers’ best describes the multiple forms of worker involved in post 16 education. It is also essential that we involve all university workers in disputes and make adjustments of hardship finances so they can do so without poverty and losing their future work. We need to build solidarity between all university workers, including cleaners and security guards, and we need to be more inclusive in our publicity and conferences and give all members a representative voice in our campaigns.

Communication mechanisms should allow NEC casualised reps to communicate with their specific constituencies. Training and mentorship for new reps built from successful local campaigns can help to overcome some of the inherent difficulties precarious staff face often through simply not being included in departmental activities or in the structures of our Union. Claims for fractional contracts need to be tabled in all branches and led by casualised workers and we need to build strong local action in branches to galvanise a national dispute on pay and conditions of work.

The time is now! We can use open days to publicise the impact of casualisation on our students. We can shame institutions in the press. We can table anti-casualisation claims in our institutions. But, above all we need to galvanize members to take industrial action supported by our permanent colleagues. We need a national strike to challenge the scandal of precarious labour. As we move into the new HE pay claim landscape, we must use the momentum and militancy we have built in recent disputes, to create strong branches and local campaigns which will feed into the national pay dispute. We want permanent staff to put their significant weight behind their casualised brothers and sisters collectively to take industrial action to end casualisation.

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Another Education is Possible, Spring 2018, Gender Equality: Time’s up and the #Me Too movement

Gender Equality: Time’s Up and the #Me Too movement

– A change in public attitudes and women’s resistance to sexual harassment

Sue Abbott

The Guardian (9 February 2018) highlighted that more than 3.4 million women in England and Wales had been sexually assaulted since the age of 16 according to recent figures. 3% of women aged 16-59 had been assaulted in the past year. The Guardian article noted that ‘the Office for National Statistics said the scale of sexual assaults against women had changed little since 2005 and that ‘more than 80% of victims did not report their experiences to the police’.

For many of us who have been involved in challenging sexism and sexual violence this is shocking but not surprising. But this year we have seen an increased awareness and a change in public attitudes to the topic of sexual harassment.

Since the Weinstein case many situations have come to our attention. For example, The University of Cambridge in February 2018 admitted that it had a ‘significant problem’ with sexual misconduct after it received 173 complaints in 9 months after launching an anonymous reporting system. The majority of these (119) involved student against student misconduct with 7 cases made by staff against colleagues and 2 cases by students against staff. The rest involved neither staff nor students. Other Universities have introduced similar anonymous reporting tools including Manchester but Cambridge was the first to publish such a report illustrating the problem that remains an issue.

Many of us had been well aware of the situation when we got involved in campaigns to tackle ‘lad culture’ in Higher Education during 2014/15. Following the ‘that’s what she said’ report (NUS, 2014) we could clearly see the need to take a preventative stance to changing the culture in many educational establishments. Universities were required to set up task groups to address the issues but bearing in mind recent events one wonders how effective these have actually been.

In 2016 UCU had published a survey that had taken 2 years to analyse such was the high response rate. In the same year 2016 the TUC published its survey that reiterated the scale of the problem. So when the Weinstein case hit the headlines in 2017/18 it only confirmed what many women activists had been campaigning against for many years. This was further emphasised by the scandal of the Presidents Club dinner. We saw rich men from business buying the services of young women employed by an agency for £175. These young women were at the beck and call of these drunken men.

This year at the 2018 Women’s TUC the key focus was the matter of sexual harassment and UCU’s motion was selected as that which would go forward to September’s TUC this year. In the motion we observed ‘that gender-based violence is endemic in society’ and can often be ‘an unspoken problem’. Our concern was that ‘companies treat sexual harassment and assault in the same way as other kinds of harassment lost within general harassment and bullying policies’. Various ideas are suggested such as working with the NUS and 1752 group, joint research and campaigns and promoting education programmes on this topic. Additionally more training for reps who support members having suffered this abuse. Indeed UCU produced a statement on sexual violence and harassment in November 2017. This promoted having a sexual harassment model policy in all UCU branches, encouraging reps to attend sexual harassment training, working with NUS,1752 and Universities UK, having a ‘16 days against gender based violence’ campaign and circulating information. But are fine words enough when the issue of sexual harassment are reaching such proportions? Do we really want to work hand in hand with UUK after what they have been promoting in the USS dispute?

With regard to sexual harassment it is worth considering the role of the ‘Me too #’ movement. It has been described as a ‘roar’ and ‘life affirming’ (Blasko, 2018). She goes on to say that the logo is about ‘power in words and although they can’t change everything they can alter the atmosphere’ .The movement started and spread virally in October 2017 as a hashtag used on social media to help demonstrate the widespread prevalence of sexual assault and harassment especially in the workplace where it was first used in this context by Tarana Burke and popularised by Alyssa Milano when she encouraged women to tweet it to give ‘people a sense of magnitude of the problem’.

So where does this go now? How can this hashtag really change the culture of ‘everyday sexism’?

Context: the implications for challenging sexual harassment in post 16 education 

So we have a range of bureaucratic suggestions but how much are all these going to actually change what we have known for such a long time?

In UCU we have seen women members at the forefront of leading disputes. The most recent disputes in pre 92 Universities saw women Branch Chairs and Presidents leading the most amazing fightback against an attack on USS pensions. This gives us hope that challenges could be made on a wider scale to the predominant culture.

The context of increasing marketization of education and neo liberal policies cannot be ignored in this debate. The Government sees education as connected to the market and students are seen as ‘customers’. There seems to be no vision of how Higher Education could be and should be. Regular attempts to attack academic freedom are not encouraging. Modern day HE reinforces society’s inequalities and represents injustice to a whole new generation. The elements in new style Universities focus upon the essence of neo-liberal individualism and competition. This can be viewed in the performance management expectations such as NSS scores, REF, TEF and so on.

The Gender Pay Gap

Moore (2018) writing in the Guardian recently commented ‘equal pay for equal work seems such a stunningly fair concept, who could argue against it?’ She goes on to give examples of disregard for gender pay inequality. In particular she notes ‘every single University in the Russell group pays women less on a median hourly rate. Durham University has the biggest pay gap at 29%’. Attending a regional briefing on the subject in November 2016, the accompanying report we were required to read commented ‘there are plenty of fine words spoken at a national level (by the employers) about the need to investigate the issue but little meaningful action’. We were informed by the official giving the briefing that ‘equal pay is a subset of gender pay’ and were informed that a few Universities, had addressed the issue for women professors at LSE and Essex. Further advice suggested establishing dialogue with HR departments and using an equal pay checklist. Additionally it should be part of the Athena Swan dialogue. But how far have we got? Regularly enquiring at NEC we get told progress is happening by the officials but where and when? It should be much more than just looking at the pay of those at the top but also those further down the grading structure.

Casualization and women

Additionally it is worth noting the report produced in January 2016 by Healy and Bergfield for the TUC on the challenges presented by increased casualization of women’s work. Although this covers a wide span of casual women workers in different industries, they note that increased casualization has led to widespread insecurity for ‘both highly qualified and less qualified workers’ and that women are particularly disadvantaged in a variety of ways. For example they note that women are ‘losing out on sick pay and holiday pay, being refused work because they are pregnant or because they are returning from maternity leave, given the worst teaching or in the case of HE given extreme marking loads’. So the context of how women are being treated in education requires early attention.

Kelly’s theory of mobilisation

A key academic theory which is well worth relating to at the present time is John Kelly’s ‘mobilisation theory’. Bearing in mind the experiences we have just had in the USS dispute and the strong role of women leaders, this is a fantastic opportunity for us to improve areas of injustice and discontent.

Kelly’s theory drew upon Tilly (1978) and theory of collective action where ‘interests are the fulcrum of the model and the ways in which people (particularly members of subordinate groups) define them’. For example, leaders need to find issues to draw upon members’ sense of injustice. Injustice creates discontent and when this is shared it becomes collective. The matter of blame is important. This tends to be directed at the employers. Solidarity is key for successful mobilisation. So the aim should be to build solidarity and collective action. Some have criticised the theory because of its lack of focus upon gender. A variety of respected academics (for example, Ledwith and Colgan (2002)) have explored this and commented that issues such as sexism, inequality and discrimination are vital to generate activism.

So where now?

There exists a span of injustices for women in our union. These include particularly at the current time sexual harassment, casualization, and gender pay gap. Too long we have waited patiently for policies to be written, meetings with HR to be organised, conferences and briefings to be set up.

What we have learnt during the USS strikes and ‘teach ins’ is that we do have the power to change things and it is now that we must take these forward. In transforming UCU we need to build a movement based upon solidarity and mutuality rather than accepting a service union.

As a starting point lets learn from Audrey White who worked for a clothes store in Liverpool in 1983. She was sacked for complaining about the sexual harassment of four women in her team. She only got her job back after a five week picket supported by dockers, car workers and other trade unionists. This is the way to win. Let’s start organising now!!!

References

Blasko S (2018) #MeToo is not just a debate, or a whinge. It’s a reality, The Guardian 25th March

Healy G and Bergfeld M (2016) The Organising Challenges Presented by the Increasing Casualisation of Women’s Work, Report for the TUC, Centre for Research in Equality and Diversity, Queen Mary University

Kelly J (1998) Rethinking Industrial Relations: Mobilization, Collectivism and Long Waves, London: Routledge

Ledwith S and Colgan F (2002) Gender, Diversity and Trade Unions, London: Routledge

Moore S (2018) Saying women don’t want the highest-paid jobs won’t wash any more, The Guardian 5th April

Tilly C (1978) From Mobilization to Revolution, McGraw-Hill

 

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Report from the UCU Women’s Standing Committee – 22 September 2017

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The UCU Women’s standing committee met on Friday 22 September. Sue Abbott from Newcastle University was re elected as Chair.

Gender Pay gap.

The committee had strong concerns about the slow progress of tackling gender pay gaps. It was agreed that this be a focus for International women’s day in March 2018 for branches and regions. The national Equality conference on 23 November in Birmingham would have member workshops to plan for this. The committee were also told that UCU HQ was looking to increase resources to tackle the gender pay gap. This was welcomed as very few women reps had facility time to undertake the large amount of work involved.

Sexual Harassment

Emma Chapman from the 1752 group addressed the committee. Many of us still did not feel that enough was being done to address this matter particularly following the UCU survey some years ago. It was felt that this needed to be tackled urgently and working with 1752 might well assist with this matter.

Casual workers

Many women casual staff were still on poor contracts and working conditions. We were told that the UCU anti casualisation group would be keen to visit regions to help take forward a stronger strategy to address this.

Women as the Resistance

This would be the theme for the Birmingham conference in November.
It was hoped to have McDonalds workers, women who have stools up to the EDL and other inspirational women speaking.

 

by Sue Abbott – Chair WMSC

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50 years on from the abortion act, abortion rights are human rights

 

abortion rights

2017 is the 50th anniversary of the UK Abortion Act. This week parliament took an historic step forward in the move towards decriminalization but this is also a time of escalating global threat to women’s reproductive health. We ask you to join UCU in two events working with our affiliate group Abortion Rights:

1) Abortion is a workplace issue: afternoon conference, Saturday 25th March, Birmingham

In this 50th anniversary year of the 1967 Abortion Act, please join West Midlands UCU to discuss abortion rights. Focusing on the importance of access to abortion in achieving gender equality in the workplace, the event will highlight issues around the legal status in different parts of the UK, emphasise why trade unions should support abortion, and discuss mobilization against the global anti-abortion movement.

When: Saturday 25th March
Where: Birmingham Midland Institute
9 Margaret Street
Birmingham
B3 3BS

Time: 13.30 – 17.15

Book at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/abortion-is-a-workplace-issue-tickets-32271373547

Abortion is a Workplace Issue www.eventbrite.co.uk

In this 50th anniversary year of the 1967 Abortion Act, please join West Midlands UCU to discuss abortion rights. Focusing on the importance of access to abortion in achieving gender equality in the workplace, the event will highlight issues around the legal status in different parts of the UK, emphasise why trade unions should support abortion, and discuss mobilization against the global anti-abortion movement.

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1872076269701221/

 

2. “Stand up for Choice: national counter-demonstration at the UK March for Life, Birmingham, Saturday 20th May

2017 is the 50th anniversary of the abortion act. Each year the annual March For Life UK tales place in Birmingham – we are chosen because of our history in setting up the first clinic in the BPAS.

In 2017 women face an increasing global threat to our agency and safety in reproductive choice. We are looking out at a world where within days of taking office President Trump has already taken the funding from vital programs associated with reproductive choice which will cost lives in impoverished and war-torn countries, as well as attacking the freedom of women to make choices about their bodies along with many other freedoms we would associate with democracy. Here in the UK abortion is still a criminal act. Pregnancy discrimination and the impact of austerity impact on the ability to have and raise children for those who want them, whilst the growth of US style intimidation tactics threaten those who don’t.

Women are rational decision makers and we have agency over our bodies. Join the counter-demonstration to stand up for choice. No return to the backstreet abortionists. Our bodies, our lives, our right to decide.

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/350747248644989/

Rhiannon Lockley

West Midlands Chair
UCU Women Members’ standing committee

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UCU Day of Action Against Workplace Racism – Wed 8th Feb 2017

imageOn the UCU Day of Action against Workplace Racism last year, NEC member Mandy Brown interviewed Dave Muritu, Chair of the Black Members Standing Committee and Branch Secretary of Sandwell College:

MB: How did the idea for a day of action on workplace racism come about?

DAVE:

“Among the Black Members Standing Committee (BMSC) it was felt that race had fallen off the agenda within our institutions and, even to some extent, within the union. In the aftermath of the Macpherson/Stephen Lawrence report (1999) there seem to be a concerted effort to tackle what was widely acknowledged as institutional racism within public bodies and institutions and legislation was strengthened by means of the race relations amendment act (2000). Winding on 16 years and many of the lessons previously learned have been forgotten. The BMSC produced a survey that over 600 black members had returned that demonstrated incidents of racism were still prevalent in our institutions and many of the barriers to career progression were still very much in place.

The day of action is therefore the beginning of a process of raising awareness of workplace racism in its many forms and engaging the entire membership in a discussion of how we can effectively challenge it.”

MB : What does the Black Members’ Standing Committee hope to achieve with the day?

DAVE:

“I think the key aim for the day is to reinforce the fact that workplace racism can only effectively be tackled by the membership collectively. Too often black members are left to challenge racism individually by means of case work and as nearly all experienced reps will tell you proving a case of discrimination is very difficult. We need to be calling our managements’ out for practices and procedures that disadvantage black members. We would hope to give confidence to both black members and branch officers to raise incidents of racism in their local branches and associations and for the wider membership to feel empowered to support those affected.”
MB: What would you like branches to do for the day?

DAVE:

“We would like branches to do anything they can manage to mark the day and to begin an ongoing discussion of how we make permanent change. Branches could call a meeting to show the ‘Witness’ film produced by the union and use the worksheets provided to prompt debate. We would like to challenge members to think of ways we can maintain a focus on improving the lives of black educators in FE and HE. There will also be the summary of the BMSC survey available and we hope that officers could provide copies for members to take away. It would be great if we could also get feedback on the day in the form of solidarity pictures or suggestions for further events.”

MB : How do we explain to members who don’t understand the issues that there is still a problem of racial inequality?

DAVE:

“I think that the film and the survey report will go a long way to helping members understand that there is still a problem of racial inequality in colleges and universities.”

MB : What can UCU do to tackle racism in colleges and universities?

DAVE:

“I think UCU can help fight racism in our institutions by engaging with black members in a far more meaningful and understanding way. This means at national level placing equality at the centre of our work, framing industrial campaigns around the needs of all our members including those who face all the difficulties thrown at us by our managements as well as the isolation that discrimination brings. At local and regional level UCU should continue to develop black activists networks to help inform policy and practices from branch level upwards and to bring on more black officers at all levels of the organisation. Training is also key to the fight. I attended an excellent training event in London, at Carlow Street last November aimed purely at new black activists’ training which was over subscribed and is now being rolled out across the country.

*** The film, Witness, commissioned by UCU and initiated by the UCU Black Members’ Standing Committee, chronicles the experiences of the union’s black members and was featured in an article in the Guardian on 4th Feb 2017.

Branches can support the Day of Action by organising a showing of the film this Wednesday lunchtime, using the link and Anti-Racism materials on UCU’s website:

Day of action on workplace racism this week – Wednesday 8 February

  • Meetings to promote/discuss our survey of BME staff
  • Joint meetings with student unions

Anti – Racist events coming up :

1. Stand up to Racism, backed by TUC, national demonstration Saturday March 18th http://www.standuptoracism.org.uk/national-demo-refugees-migrants-welcome-stand-racism-islamophobia-anti-semitism/

2. Equality Reps Conference February 17th Book here : https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/8562/Equality-reps-conference-2017

3. # we are all immigrants 27 February students and UCU teachers events in colleges by embedding immigration history into curriculum areas, theatre, art , poetry.

4. Campaign to defend freedom of movement across Europe, post-Brexit https://freemovementlabour.wordpress.com/

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Then they came and kept on coming…

A movement not a moment bw (1 of 1)

Some demonstrations are more significant than others. Not simply because of their size but because of what they represent.

The response, yesterday, to Trump’s ‘America First’ inauguration speech, a slogan stolen from the American fascists of the 1930’s, was awe-inspiring.

Tens of thousands of women and men around the globe marched to show their rage against the misogyny of Trump. Up to half a million marched in Washington, dwarfing the Trump supporters who turned out to support him the previous day. In London at least 150,000 marched.  A woman carrying a placard read: This is a movement not a moment.

It certainly felt like it.

The demonstration in London had a fantastic mix of young and old. History is made up of continuity and breaks. On yesterday’s demonstration, we saw both. There were women who had been on the first ever women’s liberation demo in 1971 marching alongside those for whom this was their first ever demonstration.

Women in Britain have a long history of fighting for their liberation. The demonstration showed how deep the struggle for women’s’ liberation runs in British society. From the struggle of the Suffragettes at the beginning of the 20th century to the fight for control over their own bodies in the late 60s.

From the strikes in 1968 by 850 women machinists at the Ford factory in Dagenham for equal pay, to the strike by 20,000 Leeds women clothing workers.  Women workers from 45 factories in Leeds marched in protest against an agreement made by the union to accept a low wage rise which discriminated against them. To the inspiring Asian women workers at the Grunwick Film Processing Laboratories who stuck over unfair dismissals of colleagues, pay inequality and racist company practices in 1976 .

All of these struggles and many more like them have made the struggle for women’s equality a central aim of any movement for change.

But yesterday’s demo was not just about the past.  A new generation of women have emerged who are enraged at the inequality that exists today. Their rage is against the rise in sexual violence, the continued attempts by legislators to restrict abortion rights and the worsening of the material conditions of women’s lives.

Forty-five years on since the pay equality act women’s pay on average is 14% less than men’s. Women are still more likely to be in low paid and low skilled jobs. 80% of those working in the low paid care and leisure sector are women, while only 10% of those in the better paid skilled trades are women. Recent research shows that 54,000 women are forced to leave their job early every year as a result of poor treatment after they have a baby.

The government’s austerity agenda has hit women the hardest.  They will have shouldered 85% of the burden of the government’s changes to the tax and benefits system by 2020.  Tax and benefit changes since 2010 will have hit women’s incomes twice as hard as men by 2020. Women will be £1,003 a year worse off by 2020 on average; for men, this figure is £555. Women overwhelmingly make up those workers on zero hours contracts.

It is these conditions and the everyday casual sexism that attempts to justify and maintain these conditions that has given rise to a new women’s movement.

only weak men fear strong women bw (1 of 1)

2017 is the hundredth anniversary of the Russian revolution.  One of the first demands granted after the revolution was abortion on demand. A demand we still do not have in Britain today. Leon Trotsky writing immediately after the revolution about how to develop a society anew argues that the key litmus test of how far a society has progressed is how far oppression has ended. He argued when we move towards constructing an equal society that we must all learn to see society through women’s eyes.

Yesterday we did and gained a glimpse of the future where the struggle for women’s liberation and equality for all is as powerful and inspiring as ever.

The fight against racism, sexism, homophobia and all forms of inequality is gathering pace. The Stand up to Racism demonstration in London on the 18th March will the next important staging post in this struggle.

Sean Vernell UCU NEC

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Elane Heffernan – NEC Election Result

thumbnail_13254042_10153604374797196_7121467890597818228_nWell done to everyone who worked hard to get the vote out for Elane Heffernan as representative of disabled members from the further education sector.

The election closed at noon on Monday 10 October 2016. Elane did not win this time. However, Elane did well and this is a very good result with regards to percentage in an all-members straight vote (i.e. none STV multi-seat) across all sectors – just over 48% voted for Elane. The turn out was 11% with 11,000 voting on a re-run ballot.

Full details of the vote here

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Whoever wins the EU referendum, working class people will be faced with a renewed offensive on their living standards.

Refugees welcome here banner-1000336

Two weeks to go to decide if Britain should remain in or leave the European Union (EU). Most UCU members in my workplace seem to favour remaining in the EU. Many cite the virulently racist nature of the leave campaign as justification to vote to remain. For many the thought of Boris Johnson, who is increasingly morphing into Donald Trump, leading the country is a frightening one.

Whilst I too share these fears I don’t except that the Remain campaign led by Cameron et al is less racist or less dangerous to working people. In fact the reason why I support leaving the EU is because every anti-racist and anti-austerity campaigner would be faced with a far more confident Cameron after a victorious vote to remain, itching to push through his privatising agenda.

The idea that Cameron is less of a racist compared to IDS or Johnson doesn’t match up to his history. Throughout his premiership he has continually played the race card. It was only a few months ago that he was blaming Muslim women for not ‘integrating’ and accepting ‘British values’. It is Cameron who has been at the forefront of attacking the welfare state, driving down living standards and cutting the benefits of some of the most vulnerable in society.

Is the European Union more progressive?

The fear of being accused of being a ‘little Englander’ has lured many of those on the left to come in behind the Remain campaign believing it to be a more of an internationalist position to take. But we only have to look at what is happening in the Mediterranean and the murder of refugees fleeing the impact of European backed imperial wars to see that Europe is not a frontier for liberation but a fortress Europe, blocking entry to those who desperately need help.

Greece also shows the true face of the pro-austerity core of the European Union. The Troika doing the bidding of the IMF and European bankers imposed a ‘structural adjustment’ programme on Greece reminiscent of that the IMF imposed on Zimbabwe in the early 1980s with the same inevitable consequences; devastating attacks on the Greece working class.

The ruling elite are evenly split over remaining in or leaving the European Union. At the heart of the argument lies a debate about the best way to reverse the historic decline of British capitalism, a decline that can be traced from the early 20th century as Britain lost control of its vast empire and Germany and the US became the economic powerhouses in Europe and across the globe.

In the 1950s the argument was between those who believed that they had to integrate with Western Europe to reverse this decline on the one hand, and those who believed Britain could continue to go it alone on the other. In the 1960s/70s it was between those employers who saw Europe as their key market in contrast to a minority who had their main investments in the US, where Britain was and is the largest overseas investor.

It is this concern, making British capitalism profitable and a player on the world economic scene, that drives the EU debate today.

It is out of these concerns that a European Union has emerged. A EU that is about driving forward the competitive interests of multinational companies and the financial sectors that support them. This comes with all the necessary measures intrinsic to the development of capitalist states; the ratcheting up of the rate of exploitation of working people through driving down living conditions and wages (ie an austerity programme), the support and financing of imperialist wars in the Middle East and Eastern Europe and the use of racism to divide the peoples of Europe though blocking the free movement of refugees.


Cameron, Johnson and Farage; the racists can be stopped.

It is the fear of racism that motivates many on the left to look for the lesser of two evils and leads many to support remaining in the EU. However both sides of the campaign have raised the level of racist hysteria around the issue of immigration to new heights. There seems to be unnecessary pessimism about the reasons why many working class people, according to the polls, will be supporting exit. It is not because they are all racists. Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Marxist, used the phrase ‘dual consciousness’ to explain how working people can hold contradictory ideas.

It would be a mistake to assume that either people are all racist or anti-racist. Life would be very easy for those of us who are in the business of winning people to challenging government attacks if this were the case. We would simply need to identify those who were anti-racist and join them. But we have all met people who are furious at the unjust nature of society. At the way the 1% take all the wealth that the 99% produce and at the same time hold the belief that immigrants are in some way to blame for their increasing immiseration. With the continual bombardment of anti-immigrant propaganda and being passive in the face of the barrage of attacks on their lives, many will feel that the anti-immigrant lies provide an explanation for their predicament.

This is why I think it is a mistake that Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell have not stuck with their previously held belief that the European Union is a bosses’ club and that we should leave. If they had done so they would have be able to provide an internationalist case for leaving the EU. They would have been able to connect with those working class people who are enraged by the austerity agenda of the government and at the same time challenges the lies about immigrants.

The danger is that by not providing an independent internationalist Leave position to that of the two main leave and remain camps it can play into the hands of Farage allowing him to pose as the person who speaks for the ‘working class bloke down the pub’.

The centre cannot hold

Leave or remain, neither side of the employers have a solution to the economic crisis ushered in by the financial crash of 2008 let alone the historic decline of British capitalism. The splits in the Tory party reflect the deep divisions amongst the employers. They might seem that they are at each other’s throats (and indeed they do have a deep loathing for one another) but they are united by one key issue – any ‘recovery’ must not be at the expense of big business or the financial sector – it must be sucked out of those who work or who survive through living on benefits.

In the aftermath of the 1st World War the Irish poet William Butler Yeats penned the poem The Second Coming in which he warned that ‘the centre cannot hold’. Indeed to borrow from another Marxist thinker, Eric Hobsbawm, we live in ‘an age of extremes’. As the main political parties over a thirty year period rushed to the centre ground of politics across Europe and the US they have lost their purchase on the working class. Their politicians are seen as corrupt and out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people. From right to left we see new political representatives who claim that they speak for the poor and the oppressed. The more far sighted sections of the employing class will be having real fears about this and will be weighing up how best to protect their interests – either by lurching to the right or to the left – to ride the blows that are coming their way.

In or out the antidote is to unite and fight

The fall out of the referendum will be a significant political crisis for the government. Rumours are spreading fast that a snap general election may be called, possibly as early as Christmas. Therefore the day after the vote, in or out, the anti-austerity movement must continue to unite to defend living standards and against more privatisation if it is able to shape the direction of the struggle.

The best antidote to whichever racist wins the referendum will be to get onto the streets as soon as possible to show that a united working class, that is black, white, migrant, men, women, disabled and LGBT will not be divided.

As we head towards the end of the academic year many UCU members in HE will be striking alongside the NUT. UCU and the NUS have agreed to call a national demonstration at the beginning of the autumn term. And more possibilities for coordinated action across the education sector in the first ever cradle to the grave strike to defend working class education is becoming a real possibility.

The first show of this unity whatever side you are on the in/out debate will come just two days before the vote itself. The convoy to Calais on the 18th June will see tens of thousands uniting around the slogan ‘Refugees are welcome here’. Both Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell will be speaking in London seeing the convoy off.

Let’s make sure this day is a demonstration of working class unity based upon a real internationalism.

by Sean Vernell, NEC London Region (pc)

Posted on

End the gender pay gap: Stop the abuse of casualised contracts: The fight for pay is a fight for the future of HE – Defend Education

Click here to download as a leaflet

Support for the two UCU strike days (25 and 26 of May) initiating our pay campaign is gaining momentum. The strikes follow our successful ballot – 65% vote for strike action and 77% for action short of a strike.  Our employers have not addressed falling pay in the sector, the yawning gender pay gap or the insecurity and low pay of staff on casualised contracts.

Our action follows the success of other public sector workers, junior doctors and teachers.  They have successfully placed their disputes (against the imposed junior doctor contract and the threats of action against forced academies) into a wider political context. This approach has won them widespread support. We have to follow their lead.

Members are resolved to fight over HE pay and deeply angry over inequality and discrimination. Female academics earn on average £6,000 less than their male colleagues.  Up to 50% of university staff employed lack secure employment and the terms and conditions of permanent staff. The 1.1% ‘final offer’ does not even address the 3-4% pay cut due to increased national insurance and pension contributions in April, never mind the 14.5% decline since 2009.  However, the miserly 0.1% increase from the original 1% ‘offer’ shows the employers are worried by our action.

These inequalities run very deep. Students face the highest levels of debt in the OECD for wanting a university education.  Most of the politicians who imposed fees had a free university education. Senior management earns more than the prime minister and continually abuse their own pay mechanisms to achieve this, showing contempt for the public sector equality ethos. Then to cap it all workers in the sector face job cuts, wage cuts and continually rising workloads.

A fight over pay is about challenging our employers to recognise that we, the workers, are the heart of HE, not expensive new buildings and campuses. Pay as a proportion of total income into universities has been consistently falling. Non-pay expenditure by contrast has been rising from around 30% of total expenditure in 1970s to 45% in 2015, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). This expansion of buildings and campuses (often into countries with dubious human rights records and which are unsafe for LGBT workers) will put real financial strains on the viability of some universities, despite rising surpluses. Universities are becoming less and less efficient as money is bled out to ‘special projects’, loan repayments, outsourcing, consultants, bonuses and other dodgy practices. Some are already feeling the financial strain.

In the 21st century the insecurity and exploitation of casualisation, the gender and race pay gap and other inequalities should have been abolished. They are still deep rooted, sometimes with names changes to hide bad practice e.g. for example some universities claim they don’t have staff on zero hours because they don’t use that terminology!  Our demands for a decent salary, ending the gender pay gap and secure fractional contracts, without job losses for those on casualised contracts, are part of the wider battle to defend and improve the quality of higher education from managements who do not understand its social value.

As illustrated by the recently announced HE Bill, the Tory government aims to increase privatisation, give free entry to ‘private providers’ and further increase student fees.  We believe in a publicly owned, democratic, high quality public university system funded by taxation.  They seem to believe in short term profiteering by ‘private providers’ who will dip in and out of the ‘market’ without any concern for the impact on students and staff or existing universities.

We also now need to discuss taking the campaign forward with further strike and other action over the summer and after.  An exam marking boycott is a powerful tactic. However, to use it effectively we need to talk with members about how it will be carried out and our response to the threat of pay docking. UCU must defend every member faced with pay deductions with escalating strike action. Members have to be 100% certain that they will not be left to stand alone. They need to be certain that the union has an agreed response to any such attack and will not settle the dispute until pay deductions are reimbursed. We need to prepare members for a marking and exam boycott.

Our union Congress and Sector Conferences are taking place in Liverpool in June 1-3.  They provide a good place for discussion and the option to present emergency motions on the dispute.  The national negotiating timetable was set up to try and prevent us affecting exams.  The employers are angry that we are managing to take effective action.  We need to keep hitting them … hard.

To make our strikes as successful as possible activists in all UCU branches need to act quickly to build support.

  • Emphasise the issues of equality and discrimination. Many branches are using a theme for each of the strike days, e.g. 25 May on gender inequality, with strike leaflets on the gender pay gap, and 26 May on casualisation and the poverty pay of many union members.
  • Encourage members to come up with their own innovative actions. Suggestions so far include helium/hot air balloons and cakes of different size to indicate the gender and casualisation pay gaps and senior management pay, suffragette colours for the gender pay gap day and UCU colours for anti-casualisation.
  • Talk to students, explain about the action, ask them to pass motions of support and hang banners from student unions.
  • Have a draft action plan for your branch, including open meetings for all members. These should aim at getting wider involvement in the strike.
  • Send out a press release to the local media and be ready the talk to them.
  • Tweet, blog and post photos and videos about the action.
  • Treat all members as potential activists.
  • Plaster the institution with placards, use suffragette or UCU colours in advance of the strike days.
  • Talk through the process of picketing – many have never done this before.
  • Invite reps from the other campus and student union to join you on the day and to speak at rallies.
  • Talk to non-members and encourage them to join the union. They can take part in strike action from the moment they join.
  • Plan for two days of strike. Decide the duration of picketing and organise rallies and marches when it ends. Some areas are holding local rallies on one day, and a coordinated rally across your region or devolved nation on the other strike day.

What do we want? Equal pay – When do we want it? 1970

Nearly half a century after the Equal Pay Act women in universities earn on average over £6000 less than their male colleagues or work for one and a half months for free.  The total spend on women academics is £1.3 billion less than for their male colleagues.  The ‘elite’ Russell group universities are amongst the worst offenders.  The University of Leicester and City University are national scandals with gender pay gaps of nearly £10,000 and over £12,000.  Discrimination in promotion is rife, with over half of academics women, but only 23% of professors.  As well as contributing to the gender pay gap, this shows that universities do not value women’s work and give them less opportunities. We cannot wait for another half century to end this injustice. We demand equal pay now.

End the abuse of casualisation

Insecurity, withheld or delayed wages, no maternity pay or proper holidays, not knowing from day to day whether you will be working – the satanic mills of the industrial revolution?  No, universities in the 21st century.  According to HESA data over half of academic staff are on insecure contracts.  Nearly half of UK universities use zero hours contracts for teaching.  Two thirds of research staff are on fixed term, often very short contracts. Many research staff work multiple contracts in different institutions to make ends meet.  82,000 academics are hourly paid teachers or similar.  Many staff remain on casualised contracts for their whole career or until they leave the sector they love because they cannot cope with this hand to mouth existence any more.  Casualised staff do the same high quality work as other staff and deserve permanent (fractional) contracts on the same pay scales as everyone else.